Truth Be Told has garnered quite a bit of critical scorn. The Apple TV+ series -- which, let’s be clear, is fiction and is only relevant to our interests because it claims to provide a perspective on the true crime phenomenon -- is based on Are You Sleeping, a book that is marketed as “Serial meets Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood.” The Serial comparison, I guess, comes from the background of the main character, Poppy Parnell, who is played in the series by Octavia Spencer.

Parnell’s a veteran journo with the New York Times on her resume, who’s now got a successful second act as a true-crime podcaster. What results is “is a muddled, soapy disappointment,” The Daily Beast writes, saying that the true-crime angle of the show is “unnecessary.” The Guardian calls the show “criminally bad,” Time says it’s “everything that's wrong with Apple TV+,” and the Hollywood Reporter says that it is “replete with weak coincidences and dopey plotlines.”

Only Variety sees room for (dubious) praise, saying, “True-crime, as a genre, tends at its worst to obsessively focus on defending or condemning individuals without really seeing them as people. In this way, Truth Be Told, a show that gets a lot very wrong, represents the field it depicts perfectly.” After all that, you may or may not be psyched to hear that it’s the main topic on next week’s episode of The Blotter Presents podcast. Will Sarah and guest Jeb Lund break from the pack? Somehow, I doubt it. -- EB